


It's June. (I am tired of being brave.)

by LeafyGreenQueen773



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anorexia, Anorexic Peter Parker, Bulimia, Eating Disorders, Gen, Peter Parker Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 20:33:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17649410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeafyGreenQueen773/pseuds/LeafyGreenQueen773
Summary: Peter is fourteen when he starts restricting his eating.Just a short, angsty one-shot about Peter Parker with an eating disorder, because sometimes you just gotta write self-therapy pieces.Trigger warning for anorexia and bulimia.





	It's June. (I am tired of being brave.)

It's June when Peter Parker, a14-year-old orphan, a physics and chemistry nerd, about to graduate from middle school in a rough borough of New York, stops for ice cream at a local stand with his friend Ned Leeds. Ned has been there since the beginning, since Peter arrived in Queens with exactly ***one*** suitcase of the belongings he couldn't bear to part with and a whole lifetime of trauma packed into the six years he's been on this Earth. Peter has seen Ned through a lot, too, although sometimes it seems like Ned needs Peter more than Peter needs him.

Except when it comes to money.

Ned buys them both ice cream cones – chocolate for himself and whatever the blue flavor is for Peter. It tastes kind of like the Froot Loops that they have eaten at Ned's house before and the sweetness coats Peter's throat in the mild June heat. He's halfway through it when Flash Thompson, a boy whose family made a lot of money after they immigrated from Guatemala, screeches to a stop on his flashy new bicycle next to Peter and Ned. Peter feels his heart plummet. Flash had a stint as Peter's bully in sixth and seventh grade, but had a reprieve in eighth when Flash moved to high school. Unfortunately, both Peter and Ned have been signed up to go to Midtown School of Science and Technology, where Flash also goes. So hell is just around the corner.

“Watch it, Parker. If you keep eating that ice cream you'll wind up like Leeds.”

Flash is gone on his bicycle before Peter can even think of a retort, but he comforts Ned, who mostly shrugs it off.

Peter doesn't shrug it off, though. He finishes the ice cream, makes an excuse, and goes home to pace away the sudden anxiety that he might be putting on weight.

Pacing doesn't help. Throwing up helps a little.

 

~~~

 

It's September when Peter starts at Midtown School of Science and Technology. He's a little smaller than he was, and he's always been small. Aunt May thinks puberty is doing its work; she keeps piling food onto his plate. Peter finds reasons to take his dinner into his bedroom – it's easier now that school has started and he's bogged down with homework – to eat half and then scoop the rest into a plastic bag. He gives the baggies to a homeless man and his dog who often seek shelter around the corner from Peter's affordable housing. Aunt May doesn't have the money to be feeding Peter _and_ a homeless man _and_ a dog, so the portions Peter packs away gradually get larger and what he eats gradually shrinks.

So does Peter, just a little. At night, when he's lying awake in bed, he slips his hand under his shirt to feel his ribs.

 

~~~

 

It's November when Peter gets bitten by a spider.

He stays home from school for two days. The bite, swollen and angry on his hand, gets hidden under the too-long sleeves of his sweatshirt. He tells May it's the flu and resolves to tough it out – they don't have money for an Urgent Care visit. The fact that he can't keep anything down for almost 48 hours is as much a blessing as a curse, in his mind.

By the end of the second day, his muscles all feel tense and achy, and his ***bones*** even hurt, as though he's getting growing pains again. The ache slowly fades over the next couple weeks, but every night his ribs are harder to feel. Somehow, he's packing on lean muscle; he takes pictures every day in the mirror as his body somehow sculpts itself. His fingers tremble as he traces the definition between his abs.

He hates it.

But what he hates even more is the fact that he's fucking _ravenous_.

 

 

~~~

 

It's May when Tony Stark comes to his apartment, only to whisk him away to Germany to fight somebody else's battles. As if Peter can even fight his own.

 


End file.
